Don't Do What's Easy, Start Playing the Long Game

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My goal is to share lessons from my What's Next Podcast as well as my LinkedIn Live interviews.?Each newsletter, I share some of the highlights from my guests to help you think differently about growth, innovation, and leadership.

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This week features insights from Dorie Clark. Dorie is an accomplished author, has been named one of the Top 50 Business Thinkers and the #1 Communications Coach in the world by Marshall Goldsmith Leading Global Coaches Award. She is a consultant, keynote speaker, and she teaches executive education at Duke University and Columbia Business School. And she is The Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Long Game, her 4th book.

During this live podcast, we touched on topics including career growth and adjusting our thinking patterns. Here are a few of my favorite parts from our conversation:

What is the genesis of thinking about the long game, especially given everything that has happened over the last 20 months?

One of the most important elements of the long game is it's not that short-term thinking is bad. I'm not here to diss short-term thinking because, during the pandemic, we needed it. It's a good skill to have in a crisis, right? You have to pivot. You have to say, All right, what's coming at me? How do I deal with it? How do I adapt in the moment??

The problem comes when we forget how to do anything else. Fundamentally, short-term thinking is great... in the short term. But if all you're doing is responding to stimuli, you're probably not going to be able to set a very effective, proactive agenda. Most of us, whether we're talking about our companies, ourselves, our lives, our careers, we have goals. And it is very hard to do that in a systematic way in the absence of long-term thinking.?

What do you tell people who might get caught in that day-to-day to really help them overcome that and try to find a way to weave a little more long-term into their thinking?

Whoever is getting caught in short-term thinking, you are not alone.?Part of the problem that we're dealing with fundamentally is short-term thinking is actually how humans operate under normal circumstances. This is not like some freak occurrence. It's how we're wired. If we want a thing, why not have the thing now??

But that being said, we also have the ability to get better. We have the ability to train ourselves.?

There are strategies that enable us to get better at waiting. We can reorient ourselves. So even if, in a particular moment, we're feeling under pressure, that's real. But also there's the opportunity for change and for shifting that narrative.

How do you get individual contributors to develop a long-term career plan??

One of the things that I often get called in for is to discuss the lack of career tracks because so often what I hear from companies is we don't really have, at least anymore, an established career path for people. They kind of have to find their own way.?

And yet employees don't necessarily know this, and they're confused because they keep going to their boss asking, why am I not getting promoted? What's the deal? And the companies are like, I'm sorry. Look, you're going to have to sort of drive this train yourself. It's not like there's an escalator anymore where every two years you get a promotion or raise.

I think that closing that gap and uncovering and talking about that disconnect is really important because people need to know they are the captain of their own ship now. And if you want to be moving forward or doing lateral moves the good news is that way more things are possible now in terms of career tracks than they ever were. But you need to be the one raising your hands, connecting with people, asking about it, finding your pathway into it. There is a level of proactivity that people certainly are not trained for. They're not used to it either, but once you do embrace it, it actually is incredibly empowering.

What are the key traits for long-term thinkers?

First, there is actually a coda at the end of the book which talks about the three traits that I feel are most essential in long term thinking: independence, curiosity, and resilience. Now, resilience, I think, is probably self-evident. Independence is necessary because first of all, we can't willy-nilly accept other people's judgments of us. We have to be independent enough to cultivate our own goals rather than the goals that society shoves down our throats. Curiosity is important because if we're able to see possibilities, if we're interested in life, if we're interested in the process, it keeps us going.?

I wish Dorie and I could have talked all day!? She’s very wise, funny, and so articulate! I hope you enjoyed this installment of my Think Forward Newsletter.

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Mahalo, Tiffani